Offence: Found guilty on two counts of maintaining a sexual relationship with a person under 17, guilty of committing an indecent act with a person under 17 years and guilty of indecent assault & guilty of an indecent act, which related to grabbing a boy’s hand and placing it on his penis.

Sentence:Sentenced to imprisonment for 3 years 6 months from 15 February 2007 and it is ordered that he is not to be eligible for parole until he has served 1 year 9 months of that imprisonment.

Other: Edwards would bribe the children with treats such as McDonald’s food, showbags, teddies and cigarettes in return for oral sex and fondling.

Edwards pleaded guilty to two counts of loitering near children in 2013.. He was arrested after loitering near children on two occasions at Low Head the previous November.

Royal commission: Abuse still haunts Queensland man four decades on

It came in November this year when the school teacher who molested him while on a school camp, Wilfred Mentink, was thrown in jail.

Mr Johnston, who was just 14 when he was sexually abused, said the vile acts he had to endure still haunt him to this day.

His heart goes out to the thousands of child abuse victims hoping for justice today as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hands down its final report.

“We want action. Really people have to take the attitude [that] it all starts now,” he said.

The damage caused

The former Salisbury High School student easily recalls the frightening school camp trip at Mount Barney in the Scenic Rim, when he and several of his fellow students fell victim to Mentink’s predatory behaviour.

“The teacher proceeded to wander around all weekend naked,” he said.

“Some of the things we witnessed was an abomination at the way kids should be treated by an adult.

Now 55, he would like to stare down his abuser and make him account for what he did.

“Your brain is rewired where you do not know what is going on and have to have years of therapy to get to the point where you can function.

“I find myself with five kids from three different mothers.”

He said some of what happened haunts him.

“You might be a narcissistic man. I do not know why you choose to have relationships with children rather than adults,” he said.

“That is an issue for you mate

“That is something you need to live with and think very deeply while you are in jail about what you have done.”

‘We want action’

Mr Johnston now serves on the Queensland Child Sexual Abuse Legislative Reform Committee and advocates for those affected by abuse.

He said the royal commission had made some people accountable, but not enough.

“People who have covered up this sort of stuff need to be held to account,” he said.

“There is not one person in Australia that I am aware of that has been convicted of concealing these sorts of crimes.

“But I am sceptical that things will change.”

On the final day of the royal commission yesterday, Justice Peter McClellan handed a book of survivors’ harrowing accounts to the National Library of Australia.

“The conjunction of events that the royal commission has examined can only be described as a national tragedy,” Justice McClellan said.

Queensland Child Protection Committee chair Elizabeth Kobierski said those words are not much different to those uttered by then prime minister Julia Gillard when she announced the commission in 2012.

“She called child abuse vile and hideous,” Ms Kobierski said.

“The beginning and the end. Now people have recognised this has been a shocking experience for many young people.

“I notice some 15,000 people have come forward to different ways to tell their stories.

“I do not think that represents all those people impacted or currently impacted.

“This is an ongoing issue that we all have to pay attention to.

“In my strongest words I can say stand up adults, let’s be protective, let’s be aware and make sure our children get the best possible chance they have moving forward.”

Convicted paedophile held in East Timor over child porn

A convicted Australian paedophile has been remanded in custody in East Timor after being found with pornographic images of Timorese children.

Wilfred Mentink, 56, is also facing charges of illegally entering East Timor after defying a deportation order issued in June.

Mentink was arrested by United Nations and East Timorese police last week when they searched his yacht and found nearly 40 items relating to child pornography, including photographs, CDs and two laptop computers.

He was remanded in custody for 30 days by an East Timorese court while further investigations are carried out.

Mentink was jailed for six years in the Australian state of Queensland in 1993 after pleading guilty to child sex abuse charges.

Australian pedophile given 48 hours to leave

A convicted Australian pedophile has been ordered to leave East Timor after a pioneering joint operation involving Australian and East Timorese police.

Dili immigration authorities gave former Queenslander Wilfred Mentink 48 hours to leave the country after he sailed into Dili harbour on Wednesday on board his yacht Loris.

Acting United Nations Police Commissioner Dennis McDermott said Mr Mentink had been turned back after failing to declare his convictions on immigration entry documents.

“It’s a first example of co-operation on this question,” he said. Australian and East Timorese police had been tracking the yacht’s movements before it arrived in Dili.

In September 1993 Mentink pleaded guilty in a Queensland court to charges of having sex with a minor and indecently dealing with another minor.

He received a nine-year sentence, later reduced on appeal to six years, and was released on parole in 1996.

Customs and immigration officials boarded and searched the yacht early on Wednesday, later informing Mr Mentink he could not land because he had made false statements on an immigration entry form.

Bernadette McMenamin, of the child protection group Child Wise, said it was “an excellent development”.

Speaking from Melbourne, she said it pointed to the need for Australia to go further, by obliging convicted pedophiles to report to police before leaving the country, following British practice.

“In this case they have turned back someone who could have seriously harmed East Timorese children, who are among the most vulnerable in the world,” she said. “If there is not closer monitoring, East Timor could go the way of Cambodia.”

East Timorese police are increasingly concerned about pedophile and prostitution rings, whose clients are mainly international.

Qld child abuser must wear tracker: judge

Christine Flatley, AAP March 26, 2013, 2:24 pm

A man who repeatedly abused children over a 20-year period has failed to convince a court he should have his monitoring anklet removed.

Kevin Michael Loudon was released from jail in 2007 on a strict community-based supervision order after serving multiple lengthy sentences for raping and abusing young boys and girls in far north Queensland.

He breached the supervision order in 2009 and was released back into the community on the provision he wear a GPS tracking device and abide by a curfew.

Late last year lawyers acting for Loudon wrote to Queensland Corrective Services asking that the device and curfew requirements be removed from the order.

Through his lawyers, Loudon argued the anklet caused him stress and anxiety because he couldn’t conceal it easily when in public.

He also argued his good behaviour warranted a relaxation in his restrictions.

However in a written judgment published on Tuesday, Brisbane Supreme Court Justice Martin Daubney disagreed, ruling Loudon was still a risk to the community.

Man who downloaded 37,000 child porn images says he did not view them, asks not to be jailed

By Peta Carlyon

Posted 30 Aug 2016, 6:31am

The lawyer for a Hobart man who downloaded 37,000 child pornography images has called for him to be spared a prison term.

Antony Brown, formerly of Brighton, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Hobart to accessing and possessing the images between December 2012 and March 2015.

His lawyer Chris Gunson SC told the court the 68-year-old kept the hard drive in a cupboard for two and a half years and did not view the images.

Mr Gunson said his client was not part of a child exploitation group, and had been searching for adult pornography when he found the material online.

“Mr Brown was not just searching for child pornography … it came about by accident and then it was curiosity,” he said.

“He was not – for want of a better phrase – part of a paedophile ring … [and] it’s not suggested he took any steps to groom children of any age or was part of any chat rooms.”

Mr Gunson said it would be an imposition for the court to impose a prison term on his client, who was a UK citizen and would likely be forced to return there after he was sentenced.

“The consequences for someone who moved to Australia at 13, who’s lived almost his whole life as an Australian … to return to the United Kingdom will be an extraordinarily disruptive punishment to himself and his family,” he said.

“It will require Mr Brown to effectively start his life again.”

But Justice Michael Brett said although there were few images, some of them were of the worst category, involving the abuse of at least one infant, and it was in part irrelevant that Brown had not gone on to view the abuse.

“I would regard possession of those matters as a significantly aggravating factor,” Justice Brett said.

“It makes possession and access of that one item a serious matter.”

Mr Gunson told the court it was “a real sign of remorse” that Brown had taken voluntary steps to relocate back to the UK and avoid the cost of official deportation to taxpayers.

But Prosecutor Jackie Hartnett said moving to the other side of the world would allow Brown to “save face” and should not be viewed as a mitigating factor.

“When you start afresh in the UK, you’re not the person found with child exploitation material, you’re the new man on the block,” she said.

Ms Hartnett said if Brown’s home had been broken into and the hard drive stolen, there was no protection against the images entering the broader market and leading to further exploitation.

Daniel McQuilton: I’ve had enough jail

A SUPERVISED sex offender who removed his electronic tracking device told Corrective Services staff “I’m not going back to jail” when they urged him to hand himself in.

Corrective Services was able to make contact with Daniel Anthony McQuilton after he removed the monitoring device in central Sydney last Wednesday, triggering an alarm.

He admitted to them that he had removed the device.

When staff encouraged him to return he told them: “It is not living on this order and I’m not doing it any more. I’ve had enough.”

McQuilton, who is classified a high-risk sex offender, later car-jacked a woman in Bondi Junction and fled in her stolen Mitsubishi Lancer to Wodonga, where he lost control of the car and hit a tree in London Road in the early hours of Good Friday.

Soon after he handed himself in to police at Wodonga.

McQuilton did not apply for bail when he appeared in Albury Local Court yesterday after his extradition from Victoria to NSW on Tuesday.

He entered guilty pleas to three counts of failing to comply with a supervision order, assault with intent to take a motor vehicle, not giving details to owner of damaged property and failing to stop when pursued by police.

He is yet to enter a plea to a charge of unlicensed driving.

McQuilton was jailed in 2009 for three years over the sexual assault and bashing of a Wodonga dancer in Young Street, Albury, in 2008.

In January, the Supreme Court placed him on an extended supervision order for two years and six months, requiring him to wear the tracking device.

Magistrate Tony Murray adjourned the matters for sentencing in Sydney on June 11.

Offence: One count of indecent assault & one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 12 years. Acquitted of three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with respect to a second complainant.

Sentence: Seven years & six moths imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years, 11 months & 27 days.

Other: The trial judge stated that the acquittal of the three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse reflected the fact that the prosecution had fallen short of proving them according to the high standard of proof required.

In 1986, O’Dowd was convicted of two count of unlawful sexual intercourse & two counts of gross indecency with respect to the step-children of a subsequent relationship. He was sentenced in the Supreme Court in May 1987 to imprisonment of four years & six months, with a non-parole period of two years & six months.

At the SA Anti-social and Criminal Behaviour inquiry in 2013, O”Dowd recommended reviewing money spent on prison courses so more can be used to re-educate prisons with basic skills such as welding & leather work.

Supervision for ‘chronic’ NSW sex offender

AAP

March 07, 2013 6:00PM

A 69-YEAR-OLD Sydney man who has a “chronic tendency” to sexually abuse girls has been placed under an extended supervision order after a Supreme Court judge found he continued to show no insight into his offending.

Robert Stanley Steadman, also known as Robert Stanley Stanton, was placed under the three-year order pursuant to the Crimes (Serious Sex Offenders) Act by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

In his written judgment, Justice Richard Button said the order would be a “significant erosion” of the 69-year-old’s liberty.

However, the court found it was necessary because Steadman had “no, or virtually no, insight into his long-standing proclivity to commit sexual crimes against young girls”.

The court heard that in 1958 – at just 14 years of age – Steadman was found guilty of indecently assaulting a six-year-old girl and committed to an institution.

In 1993, he was convicted of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent with a girl aged 11.

Then in 2009, Steadman pleaded guilty to aggravated indecent assault and two counts of indecent assault of three girls – two aged nine and one aged 10.

Since being released in December 2012, Steadman has been subject to interim orders and has been living in a halfway house for released prisoners at Malabar in Sydney’s southeast.

While Justice Button said Steadman had not breached his parole or any Child Protection Order since being released, he remained at moderate to high risk of re-offending.

“I am satisfied that the defendant has a chronic tendency to commit sexual offences against female children that has existed for well over 50 years.”

Although Steadman sought treatment to “claimed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), said to have arisen from his involvement in the (Granville) train disaster,” he has refused treatment with regard to his proclivity towards girls.

“In short, there is a complete and longstanding lack of insight into the issue, and an entrenched refusal to seek to deal with it,” Justice Button said.

“The defendant has no friends or family … He has no contact with his three former wives, and his surviving sister wishes to have nothing to do with him.”